More Poems

Here is part of a poem titled ‘Adversity’ (author unknown) that is meaningful to me:

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
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Good timber does not grow with ease.
The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
The further sky, the greater length.
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
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Though unsophisticated, these two little poems written, I think, by children
resonate with me:

I am a child of God and this one thing I know:
You, too, are a child of God
Not on earth for merely show.
For you and I came here to grow.
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I am the best at what I do
And I do all I can.
I am the best in at least one thing
When so I think, then so I am.

Your Great Days

I don’t know what your great days were, but my great days as a boy included:
Catching my first trout
Hitting my first Little League and Babe Ruth League home runs
Meeting my wife-to-be at age 14
Winning a couple of junior golf tournaments
My high school years

As I grew older, my great days included:
Finding and reading some of the world’s great literature
Marriage and living with the women I loved
Seeing students I taught catch the vision
Teaching and enjoying my children as they grew up
Finding my religion and knowing the purpose for my life and the direction it should take, and serving in my Church
Enjoying the great out-of-doors—camping, fishing in the Rocky Mountains, gardening and cutting trees

Taking an inventory of where you have been, where you are now, where you want to go, and what you are doing to get where you want to go can and should be a valuable on-going exercise.

Poetry - What?

In an earlier essay I alluded to the fact that poetry is dead in mainstream America. I do not think that it is entirely dead, though, for my generation and my parents’ generation. So, in an effort to regenerate it and present it to any reader younger than me, I submit the following thoughtful piece from Edgar A. Guest. It encourages us to make up our minds on the important issues that confront us:

You are the fellow who has to decide
Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside.
You are the fellow who makes up your mind
Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind.
Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar
Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Take it or leave it. Here’s something to do!
Just think it over. It’s all up to you!

Nobody here will compel you to rise;
No one will force you to open your eyes.
No one will answer for you, yes or no,
Whether to stay there or whether to go;
Life is a game, but it’s you who must say
Whether as cheat or as sportsman you’ll play.
Fate may betray you, but you settle first
Whether to live to your best or your worst.

So whatever it is you are wanting to be,
Remember, to fashion the choice you are free.
Kindly or selfish, or gentle or strong,
Keeping the right way or taking the wrong.
Careless of honor or guarding your pride,
All these are questions which you must decide,
Yours the selection, whichever you do;
The thing men call character’s all up to you.

The American Dream

Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech has become iconic in American culture—so much so that for some American’s it has even become sacrosanct. Glen Beck was roundly thrashed recently because he presumed to publicly declare his dream for America—as if Mr. King was the only public figure allowed to have a dream, a vision for America. I think both of their dreams had much merit. I think every private person, each of us, must also have a Dream. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)

Preceding either of these thinkers’ dreams, though, was the ‘American Dream’ identified in the history books of many generations of America’s school children. Americans for two centuries have equated freedom with opportunity and, until the last half-century, with responsibility. Opportunity came with citizenship—opportunity, no matter who you were or where you came from, to pursue happiness, to make money or have power, or both. And the dream included the idea that our children could have it better than we had it—if they would work for it, as we did.

Historically, the tyranny of English ties was long broken and the only tyranny ‘we the people’ came to worry about was the tyranny of a minority, the elitists. Those who became the elite, the medical profession, the media controllers, the educational establishment, the political establishment, the relatively small number of people who try to determine the thoughts and ideas and direction that all people ‘should’, in their minds, possess—these have become the tyranny of our time.

Recently, the emergence of the ‘Tea Party’ is attempting to give voice to the strength of the larger great American ‘silent majority’ who still have The Dream, unorchestrated by the self-identified elitist controllers of our destiny.

But I have a concern. Look at who compose this emergent counter-point. From what generation do they come? Will they have the power and determination to sustain their opposition and present and follow up on viable alternatives to what they have identified as the source of our current national malaise.

But more to the point of this essay, I wonder if the American Dream has not collapsed for many. Especially I am concerned about the current generation. Do many of our ‘generation x’ really believe they can drive their own destiny, own their own home, even get a job? For those who have given up, do they think that the well of ‘entitlements’ will never dry up? Has the economic downturn brought about a meltdown of the Dream that had given motivation for us of the Boomer generation and of the Greatest Generation that preceded it? How long will those who are out of work or who no longer can have aspirations for a college education or who have never really bought into the ‘Dream’ maintain the self-respect which is fundamental to self-improvement? I see the emergence of many more who are defeated even before they have started, or at least started as we, of my generation, did.

Somehow the Dream must be kept bright. To do so I think that the light must be kept on—and kept focused on the ideas and ideals that got us through the previous Great Challenges that made strong men and strong women of our noble ancestors. I see the challenges of our time neither different in kind or in degree.

Let’s dust off the old solutions, maybe not the specifics but certainly the principles, and see how they can be adapted to today’s challenges. I think we may be surprised at how many of them will work.

The only way to make a dream come true is to have it in the first place.

Cliches

In learning to write I was told to avoid clichés. It was implied that one should also avoid thinking in clichés. This was akin to avoid thinking in generalities. Well, I wonder about these things. If our clichés are simply trite aphorisms that have been given no thought—so called throw-away phrases—then I might agree. But isn’t it likely that there is some or a lot of truth behind some of the things that become cliché? And if so, could not some of them be quite valuable in our mental repertoire?

I would suppose that the library has books on clichés, catalogues of them perhaps or a history of their derivations. I have thought of looking up such a book but every time I get into a library now I get distracted by the many interesting titles that catch my eye and consequently go off on another tangent.

But the point is, what is on the default screen of our mind? Could our non-critical mind be driven by what has over the years become cliché to it? Could these random but now entrenched thoughts not be the daily fare or fuel or nutritional ingredients of our semi-active thought processes? If so, it would seem that we should intentionally, daily, feed our minds with thoughts that are inspirational, growth stimulating and promoting, and healthy. Conversely, we should avoid anything negative or degrading or that could become habitual and thus play on our mind’s screensaver.

So, what are the thoughts and intents of our minds and hearts? If they are positive, shouldn’t they become even cliché?

My Notes

In my office I have thirteen large spiral notebooks totally filled with handwritten notes. These were taken during summer sessions (mostly) at the university while I was doing graduate studies. Not all the notes were classroom notes; many of them were taken from books or articles I had read, discussions engaged in, out-of class lectures or addresses attended, musings or collected thoughts or quotations, or other things that particularly inspired me.

One of the people in my early academic life who inspired me was a man who in his own life did essentially the same thing and who said that over the course of his life his notes became his most valued possession. He said that thought of his reading as a combine harvester that one would find on a farm. This machine cuts everything it passes through but throws out the weeds and straw and chaff and puts only the wheat into the hopper.

Standing on the shoulders of this giant I have done that to great advantage with my own reading and writing. I have taken notes from books I did not own, and from books that I do own have underlined, crossed out, and annotated, every book I think I have read in the past 40 years. My annotated Bible is my most valued single book. I cannot envision me ever wanting a new one.

I have done this editing even with my own notes, lectures, sermons, essays and letters. I reread them with delight and get a ‘new’ education with each reading.

Finally, what a blessing the computer has been to me in this regard for the past 26 years. Like I do with my notebooks and bound volumes, I often look at my computer files and now the photographs my wife and I have taken from our many travels. Even if none of my children or stepchildren has any interest in these personal treasures when I close this chapter of my life, it has given me great pleasure and been time well spent. I am convinced that these things have been impressed on the engrams of my soul and so I will be a Celestial traveler with a full ‘backpack’ or ‘mindpack’ on the great journey that beckons.

Enter Hugh Nibley

Since I quoted Hugh Nibley in my last posting I thought I’d let you become a little more familiar with him today.

As I turn to my office bookshelf at eye level on my right are twelve volumes by this eminent scholar and Christian disciple. I can reach out and touch them and hold on to them as an anchor of cultural stability when I need to. Nibley placed my faith in the context of world history and science and unflinchingly took on whatever the pundits and skeptics had to offer. I knew Dr. Nibley—slightly—and had several conversations with him (actually he did almost all of the talking after my opening remark or question to him). I gained at every encounter. I would encourage any reader of mine to seek out and if you are fortunate enough to find the wise among us really listen to their take on life. As I indicated in my posting, “Grist,” a good starting point would be to take one of these luminaries, read what they had to say, look at their bibliographies and go from there.

Taking a volume of Nibley’s, at random, and flipping through it to where the page happens to fall open I find this (Here is your typical Nibley):
“If one makes a sketch of a mountain, what is it? A few lines on a piece of paper. But there is a solid reality behind this poor composition. Even if the tattered scrap is picked up later in a street in Tokyo or a gutter in Madrid, it still attests to the artist’s experience of the mountain as a reality. If the sketch should be copied by others who have never seen the original mountain, it still bears witness to its reality.
“So it is with the apocryphal writings. Most of them are pretty poor stuff and all of them are copies of copies. But when we compare them we cannot escape the impression that they have a real model behind them, more faithfully represented in some than in others. All we ever get on this earth, Paul reminds us, is a distorted reflection, but it is a reflection of things that really are. Since we are dealing with derivative evidence only, we are not only justified but required to listen to all the witnesses, no matter how shoddy some of them may be.” (from The Expanding Gospel, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, 12:203-4)

Fact: With hurricanes and tsunamis (as well as volcanic eruptions, tornados, and earthquakes) seemingly increasingly part of our international experience, the speed of these elements may be of some interest to you: Water speeds—Mississippi River 2 mph; Gulf Stream 4.6-5.8 mph; Lava Falls, Colorado River 30 mph; common sea waves 15-56 mph; tsunamis up to 490 mph. Air speeds—light breeze 4-7 mph; moderate breeze 13-18 mph; strong gale 47-54 mph; storm 64-75 mph; hurricane >75 mph.

Enough is Enough

I recently played golf with my brother Ken at Pebble Beach (a perquisite from my employment there). As we were ending our round it was becoming dark and we noticed that almost none of the mansions along the course had the lights on. That was because no one was home.

This is the way it often is unless there is a prestigious event being held in the gated Pebble Beach community. These multi-million dollar homes were second or third homes held, I have been told, for show-pieces for the very wealthy.

I saw this played out some months ago as I was spectating at a golf tournament held at Pebble at one of the most ostentatious of the houses along the fourteenth fairway. A man sat, alone with his drink, his ascot and blue blazer and loafers and jeans, surrounded by his stable of five or six very expensive collector’s automobiles (Ferraris, Bentleys, Buggatis, Lamborginis, etc.) watching the people on the golf course look at him. And he looked pathetic. It seemed very clear to me that this was an unhappy man whose money could not buy him what he so desired—validation and love.

One of my favorite thinkers, Hugh Nibley, has hit the nail on the head regarding this topic in his essay, “Breakthroughs I would like to see,” from his book Approaching Zion. He says, ‘More than enough is more than enough[!].’

And how much is ‘enough?’ I would say, when ‘I have sufficient for my needs.’ I think we become unbalanced when we go much beyond this. My religion teaches me that the Lord says, “I give not unto you that ye shall live after the manner of the world.” And what is the manner of the world? I think that in our society it is using our every energy and resource to obtain wealth or the things we think we can buy with it. From the scriptures comes this: “Ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them.” Says Nibley: ‘Like medicine, the stuff of this earth is to preserve life; too much of it is unnecessary and dangerous and so is not enough.’ We may find that, as Nibley also says, ‘Wealth is an almost insuperable barrier to entering the kingdom [of God].’

Well, this should be an unpopular essay.